Things are cooking right along here at Omeka, and as usual, we’re looking for more qualified hand to help us build. See the following developer add for details. We begin reviewing applications today, and will do so on a continuing basis.

Junior PHP Developer — Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (Contract, Fulltime, Onsite preferred)

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media <chnm.gmu.edu> is looking for a junior PHP developer (contract, preferably onsite) to join our innovative and energetic team in working on Omeka <omeka.org>, our FOSS Zend-based content management system and web publishing platform for cultural heritage materials.  You can see the code at <https://github.com/omeka/Omeka>.

Required:

•     Proficiency in PHP (1-2 experience years)
•     Proficiency in Javascript (1-2 years experience)
•     Strong Object-Oriented programming skills
•     Familiarity with the MVC design pattern
•     Familiarity with Zend Framework
•     Excellent communication skills with others at all levels of programming skill
•     Ability to balance competing needs and priorities in designing code
•     Creativity in problem-solving, and openness to experimenting with unfamiliar approaches

Preferred:

•     Experience working on open source software projects
•     Familiarity with HTML5, CSS3, and graphic design principles
•     Experience with Amazon Web Services and other cloud services
•     Experience with github
•     Experience with PHPUnit testing framework
•     Background or experience in the Humanities

With guidance from our Lead Developer and Omeka Dev Team Manager, and in collaboration with other developers and members of CHNM, the new team member will work primarily on various aspects of our Omeka content management system.

Duties:

• Resolve issues in the core Omeka core
• Develop and maintain Omeka plugins and themes
• Build and customize new sites with Omeka
• Help to design and implement future versions of the core Omeka codebase.
• Contribute to other ad-hoc projects within the CHNM ecosystem.

CHNM is the leading producer of open source tools for humanists and of award-winning history content on the Web (for example: Zotero, Omeka, teachinghistory.org and the Bracero History Archive). Each year CHNM’s many project Web sites receive over 16 million visitors, and over a million people rely on its digital tools to teach, learn and conduct research. CHNM is located at George Mason University, which is 15 miles from Washington DC, and is accessible by public transportation.

Please send a resume and cover letter to jobs@chnm.gmu.edu. We will begin reviewing materials immediately.

You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well you just might find
You get what you need

With the immortal words of the Rolling Stones, we offer the Omeka 2.0 release candidate. New and improved based on the feedback and testing from the 2.0 Beta, this version of the software makes it possible for Omeka fans to get started on new projects today.

The Omeka Team is putting the finishing touches on updated themes and plugins that usually accompany our full release package. In the meantime, designers, developers, and translators can work with the core software, the default and Seasons themes, and the COinS and SimplePages plugins.

Omeka 2.0 sports a host of shiny new and improved features, including:

• an administrative interface that has been redesigned to improve workflow;
• an improved ability to customize site navigation with drag and drop;
• the opportunity to select a homepage from a range of available pages;
• the addition of Dublin Core Metadata fields to Collections;
• the ability to add comments or instructions to metadata fields for other users;
• the creation of thumbnail images for a fuller range of files;
• and, the availability of a new site-wide search.

Moreover, plugin and theme developers will discover more streamlined code, fewer functions to know (without any loss in capability), an increased number of hooks and filters, and greater overall consistency in how to use them. All of these improvements have been carefully documented by the Omeka Dev team.

Check out the screencast to get an overview of 2.0 goodness, and then go download your copy of the release candidate to get started!

Introduction to Omeka 2.0 from Omeka on Vimeo.

The Omeka dev team has been hard at work making many changes and improvements to Omeka in anticipation of our next major release, 2.0. We will make a release candidate available in mid- to late- October for testing.

We want to alert the community of the changes coming, in hopes that it will help users plan their projects and prepare for theme and plugin development work. The most significant changes in 2.0 will effect sites with customized themes and plugins, and we will outline those changes in Part II.

Administration

While much of the work for 2.0 occurred under the hood, web designer Kim Nguyen tackled the challenge of refreshing and improving the look and functionality of the administrative interface. Users will notice that the theme is completely rewritten.

The new Omeka Admin Dashboard is streamlined to improve workflow, management, and overall usability of the administrative side of Omeka. Some notable improvements include:

• Easier access to main admin functions and site settings from the Dashboard.
• Cleaner, more efficient item editing page — no more scrolling to the bottom to click “Submit”!
• Ability to annotate Dublin Core element descriptions, and other element set fields to provide guidance on interpreting fields.
• Option to re-order the admin display of Dublin Core elements, and other element sets, for item metadata entry.
• Easier user management with bulk operations on users.
• Easier customization of site navigation.

Here is an “exclusive” preview of the new Admin Dashboard:

Experienced Omeka content creators may need a day or two to get used to a slightly different layout, but we think that everyone will find the changes improve their experience when working with content in the Admin.

Search

The search facility in Omeka 2.0 is vastly improved. Search functions across all of your Simple Pages and Exhibit content in addition to item metadata, as was previously the case. Moreover, plugins can easily add their own content to the search mechanism. If you will be upgrading from an existing Omeka installation, the search index can be easily updated from the administration pages to make sure users can find what they are looking for.

File Handling

Depending on how your server is configured, Omeka 2.0 will generate jpeg derivatives of many more file types, including PDF files and videos. These thumbnail images will appear in browse and exhibit pages. Additional metadata about files will also be available.

These changes will be most visible to project and content managers. For changes effecting designers and developers, stay tuned for Part II.

Things are cooking right along here at Omeka, and as usual, we’re looking for more qualified hand to help us build. See the following developer add for details. We begin reviewing applications today, and will do so on a continuing basis.

Junior PHP Developer — Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (Contact, Fulltime, Onsite)

The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media <chnm.gmu.edu> is looking for a junior PHP developer (contract, preferably onsite) to join our innovative and energetic team in working on Omeka <omeka.org>, our FOSS Zend-based content management system and web publishing platform for cultural heritage materials.  You can see the code at <https://github.com/omeka/Omeka>.

Required:

•     Proficiency in PHP (1-2 experience years)
•     Proficiency in Javascript (1-2 years experience)
•     Strong Object-Oriented programming skills
•     Familiarity with the MVC design pattern
•     Familiarity with Zend Framework
•     Excellent communication skills with others at all levels of programming skill
•     Ability to balance competing needs and priorities in designing code
•     Creativity in problem-solving, and openness to experimenting with unfamiliar approaches

Preferred:

•     Experience working on open source software projects
•     Familiarity with HTML5, CSS3, and graphic design principles
•     Experience with Amazon Web Services and other cloud services
•     Experience with github
•     Experience with PHPUnit testing framework
•     Background or experience in the Humanities

With guidance from our Lead Developer and Omeka Dev Team Manager, and in collaboration with other developers and members of CHNM, the new team member will work primarily on various aspects of our Omeka content management system.

Duties:

• Resolve issues in the core Omeka core
• Develop and maintain Omeka plugins and themes
• Build and customize new sites with Omeka
• Help to design and implement future versions of the core Omeka codebase Contribute to other ad-hoc projects within the CHNM ecosystem.

CHNM is the leading producer of open source tools for humanists and of award-winning history content on the Web (for example: Zotero, Omeka, teachinghistory.org and the Bracero History Archive). Each year CHNM’s many project Web sites receive over 16 million visitors, and over a million people rely on its digital tools to teach, learn and conduct research. CHNM is located at George Mason University, which is 15 miles from Washington DC, and is accessible by public transportation.

Please send a resume and cover letter to jobs@chnm.gmu.edu. We will begin reviewing materials immediately.

The next release of Omeka will include internationalization, which gives our loyal Omekans one more way to contribute to the project: by helping us translate Omeka into your favorite non-English language!

We are using the Transifex.net site to manage our translations, which will then be shipped with the next version of Omeka. To work on a translation, just register for a free account there, and go to the Omeka project page. Translation work is organized into teams for each language, so click the teams tab to see what languages have already been started. If someone has already started working on your language, follow that link, and ask to join that team. If not, request to create a new team for your language. Additional information is in the Translate Omeka page in our documentation.

Have some spare time over the holidays? Want to contribute to Omeka while you exercise your language skills? Then sign up for a Transifex.net account and help us bring Omeka to an even wider audience!